"I had a strong inclination of what I was going to do," Schmidt said with a chuckle during a phone interview with cleveland.com on Monday evening.

So after the tour of Ohio State's campus and the football facility, Schmidt didn't have much thinking to do when he arrived in Meyer's office with offensive line coach Ed Warinner and offensive coordinator Tom Herman.

This was a decision Schmidt envisioned making for years, all the way back to a night during his freshman season when his head high school football coach asked him what his dream school was. Schmidt responded with Ohio State.

"I don't really know why I said Ohio State," Schmidt said. "I just knew it was a great program. I watched them on TV, I loved them, I saw the huge stadium and ... I don't know. It's always just been a dream school."

It was what Ohio State represents that was the real dream for Schmidt. When he was just a freshman, he saw the Buckeyes for what they were – a nationally relevant program with a huge stadium that annually competes for national titles.

The first player from South Dakota to ever play at Ohio State, Schmidt became the second player in as many days to commit to the Buckeyes' 2015 recruiting class. The first was three-star safety Tyler Green of Hyattsville (Md.) DeMatha Catholic, who earned and accepted his Buckeyes offer at the camp.

Schmidt and Green never crossed paths at the camp, but both knew while participating in drills that Ohio State was where they wanted to be.

"Some of these other camps I have been to at schools (that I have offers from), if they're trying to get you, they kind of let stuff slide and won't call you out when you're doing something wrong," Schmidt said. "Coach Warinner wasn't like that at all, and I loved that.

"I would get too wide on my pass sets, and he called that out so I could fix that right away so it didn't become I problem. I really liked that. I really liked how Coach Warinner is always straightforward with you."

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